The Legend of the Maiden’s Tower

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Rapunzel? This is one of the earliest stories related to the concept of a “Maiden’s Tower,” and historians suspect the fairytale archetype relates to Istanbul. Popular myth tells of an emperor with a daughter. He loved his daughter, but an oracle prophesized that she would be bitten by a venomous snake on her 18^th birthday. 

The father responded by locking her away in the tower. He hid her from public view, designating himself as the only visitor allowed in the area. On her eighteenth birthday, the emperor brought her a basket of flowers and fruits as a gift. Upon reaching into the basket to retrieve a fruit, she was bitten by a poisonous asp that was hiding.

The legend ends with the girl dying in her father’s arms, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

There is another story about the tower in which Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, lived. She was courted by a young man named Leander, who would swim the river each night to be with her. Hero would light a lamp to show him the way. Leander tried for many evenings to get Hero to give him her virginity. She finally succumbed, and gave him a summer’s worth of delights. 

One night as winter came, Hero’s lamp burned out as Leander swam. The waves were vicious, and carried him out to see where he drowned and was lost forever. In her grief, Hero threw herself from the tower.